Backgrounder: World's mysterious airplane crashes

BEIJING - A Malaysian flight with 280 passengers and 15 crew members on board crashed Thursday in Ukraine near the Russian border.

The Ukrainian government and insurgents in eastern Ukraine laid the blame at each other's door. A Ukrainian government official said that militants shot down the airliner while a rebel leader said the Ukrainian forces should take responsibility for the tragedy.

The following are some of the world's major airplane crashes surrounded by mystery that have occurred in recent decades.

Korean Air Lines Flight 007, all 269 on board dead

A soviet mini-submarine used to search for debris from Korean Air Lines flight 007, shot down on Sept 1, 1983 near Sakhalin Island, rests on the deck of a conventional tender vessel in Nevel'sk, Sakhalin Island, in the East Sea off Russia in this Sept 27, 1983 file. The plane, with 269 passengers and crew, was shot down by a Russian fighter jet west of Sakhalin Island as it strayed into prohibited Soviet airspace. The plane was en route from New York to Seoul on Sept 1, 1983, following a route that took it over Alaska before crossing the Pacific Ocean. [Photo/IC]

  

On Sept 1, 1983, a Korean Air Lines (KAL) Boeing 747-230B was shot down by a Soviet Su-15 interceptor west of Sakhalin Island in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard, including Lawrence McDonald, a US congressman, were killed.

The downing of KAL 007 was considered one of the deadliest and most important events of the Cold War.

Initially, Moscow denied the incident had taken place. Later, Soviet leaders admitted what had happened but said the plane was on a spy mission, having deviated from its assigned route from New York to Seoul via Alaska.

The plane was traveling at a heading of 245 degrees, flying like an arrow toward the eastern portions of the Soviet Union.

Important evidence, notably the flight data recorders, were not released until after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

An investigation conducted by the International Civil Aviation Organization in 1993 showed the pilots' inappropriate interaction with the autopilot controls probably caused the plane to go off its course.

But flight 007 has been the subject of ongoing controversy and has spawned a number of conspiracy theories. Many of these are based on the suppression of evidence, unexplained details such as the role of a USAF RC-135 surveillance aircraft, or are merely Cold War disinformation and propaganda.

Then US President Ronald Reagan announced on Sept 16, 1983, that GPS would be made available for civilian use, free of charge, in order to avert similar navigational errors in future.